Turkey seeks greater role for women in Islam

ANKARA, Mar 7 (Reuters) Turkey plans to appoint women to religious affairs positions across the Muslim but secular country in a move to boost equal rights, Turkey's top religious authority said.

Women's rights have improved in recent years as Turkey brings its laws into line with those of the European Union, but discrimination and violence against them remain stubbornly high.

''As part of our positive discrimination policy, we pay great care to the assignment of women,'' Ali Bardakoglu, who heads Ankara's Directorate General for Religious Affairs, said in an interview with Today's Zaman newspaper published yesterday.

''In the near future, female mufti assistants will be appointed to all provinces (in Turkey). This practice is the first in the world. The purpose of our women's branches and all of our work is to raise female and social awareness.'' Bardakoglu complained of erroneous perceptions in parts of the Muslim world that incorrectly assumed Islam had a problem with women's rights.

The Religious Affairs Directorate controls Turkish clerics and writes their sermons. A handful of female assistants already work in the directorate administering Koranic courses, religious fatwas and dealing with other matters.

The female mufti assistants will not preach in mosques.

Few Muslim nations have allowed women to preach in mosques.

Morocco's decision to appoint women as preachers for certain prayers last year put the North African kingdom at the forefront of attempts to improve the status of women in the Arab world.

Statistics point to widespread use of discrimination and also violence against women in Turkey, especially in its impoverished, deeply conservative eastern regions where many are illiterate, having been denied an education by their families.

''Sexual discrimination is worse than racism, more dangerous and more primitive,'' Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told a weekly gathering of his centre-right AK Party yesterday.

Despite Erdogan's strong verbal support for women's rights, women hold only four per cent of seats in parliament and he has only one woman in his cabinet.

Reuters SY DB0912